In The Line Of Fire
by gatehead81
Summary: A near fatal miss leaves Jack very angry and looking for someone to blame. Naturally that blame falls on the other person who was involved, but just how exactly will Sam react when Jack attempts to lay it all on her? Sam/Jack, Angst/Friendship, K plus, one-shot with minor Janet and Daniel.


**AN: Another one-shot written over a few hours today. Started with the single word 'go' and grew completely organically from there. I hope it all ties together smoothly enough and links back. I have not really given it much editing time (as in none at all) but may well look at it again in a few days time...after I poke about at some of my other unfinished pieces for a while. Stuck on all of them at the mo :/**

**Anyhoo, relax and enjoy the incident, the angst and follow through. Season 3, unedited. **

**Summary: A near fatal miss leaves Jack very angry and looking for someone to blame. Naturally that blame falls on the other person who was involved, but just how exactly will Sam react when Jack attempts to lay it all on her? Sam/Jack, Angst/Friendship, K plus, one-shot with minor Janet and Daniel. **

* * *

**In The Line Of Fire**

* * *

"Go!"

The order came sharp and clear and Sam knew she had no choice. The recently promoted Major rose from her position behind the DHD and ran for the gate, Daniel and Teal'c were already through and the Colonel would be hot on her heels, or at least she hoped he would, she could not allow any other thought to enter her head as she instinctively ducked before the staff-blast hit the surface of the wormhole.

Before she stepped through she paused to look back over her shoulder. He was too far behind, he was never going to make it. "Sir!" she called, stalling completely mere millimetres from safety.

"Major, get out of here, that's an order!" He had risen from cover early as if he had just fired in her direction and the enemy was closing in behind him, he did not know they were there.

Sam could not do it, they were going to kill him. Instead of heading through the gate she picked off the closet jaffa, dived off the side of the platform and behind the safety of the steps. From there she opened fire again, careful with her lines as she sighted behind the now thunderously mad Colonel who was rapidly heading in her direction.

Behind him the second jaffa fell and then another. She sighted a fourth and picked him off as he took aim at the Colonel's back. Next thing she knew a hand grabbed her by the arm and she was being hauled roughly up the side of the steps and tension of the wormhole's surface took her.

OoO

Jack O'Neill was beyond mad.

"Lock it up."

The order came from somewhere but he did not know from where or from whom, he did not particularly care right now. He only cared about one thing and she was lying in a heap at his feet. "What the hell was that?" he yelled, tearing the cap off his head.

It took her a while to be able to respond. "Sir?" Sam asked, still trying to figure out which way was up.

"I gave you a direct order, Major."

"Sorry Sir." Sam responded automatically even though she was not quite sure what she had done. Still disoriented she hauled herself to her feet, the weight of her P-90 and her other gear tipping her off balance slightly. Without thinking she checked her weapon and re-engaged the safety.

"Stop fiddling with your weapon and look at me." O'Neill barked.

Carter instantly knew that this was serious so she came sharply to attention and levelly held her CO's eye. She knew better than to speak.

"If you _ever_ defy me like that again, Carter I will have you off this team and out of the SGC before you even have time to figure out what the hell happened. Is that clear?"

Sam stumbled over her words. Never before had she seen him so blatantly furious, what had she done? "Ah...yes Sir?" She flinched when she realised her tone was vaguely questioning. A rookie mistake.

Jack twisted his head ever so slightly and stared into his 2IC. He could still hear the blood pumping in his ears and feel the hammer of his heart against his chest. He drew upon the deepest wells of discipline he had and brought his voice back down a single pitch. "Was that 'yes Sir?' or 'yes Sir.', Major?" he questioned, drilling his rage into her.

"It was 'yes Sir'." Sam answered firmly, no doubt over the inference this time.

For a long moment he did not speak as he watched her. She did not break rank, her eyes now front and centre, her own discipline ratcheted up to full barricade. "Good." he told her coldly. "Now get yourself down to the infirmary and have that arm looked at. But be in no doubt that we will be having a long discussion about your conduct as soon as you get back out of there. I'll see you in one hour Major, my office."

With that he walked away, brushing past the SF who attempted to take his weapon as was protocol. The young man staggered but maintained his balance and surprised stared after the Colonel.

Carter on the other hand stood slacked jawed in her place on the ramp. What the hell had she done...and what arm? Quickly she glanced down. Her right was fine and so was her...oh. Blood seeped through the fabric of her uniform on and just below her Earth Chevron Patch. Absently she peeled it off and looked at the fresh red stain that was seeping through and bloodying the whole of Planet Earth. Her arm did not hurt and so for a moment she questioned whether or not the blood was actually hers. Then she felt it...the sting of a minor flesh wound. Grimacing she covered the injury and suppressed a soft curse. No wonder he had been mad, she had allowed herself to get shot and did not even notice. Even with all of the adrenaline in her system she should have noticed something like that! The trouble was they got shot up so often these days that flesh wounds hurt no more than grazed knees. Even mildly fractured bones and low level zat-blast were becoming tolerable on the SG-1 pain charts.

"What, what happened?" Daniel asked, coming up the ramp to meet Sam.

"Hmm? Oh...I'm not entirely sure, Daniel. I must have took a hit at some point. Doesn't really hurt, just a graze."

"No not that. I mean I can clearly see you are not bother by that. What did you do? What order did you defy to make him so mad at you like that?"

Sam knew better than to answer that one in the presence of the SF and technicians in the gate room and the control room who were all avidly listening...besides she still had no real idea. "Will you take my P-90 and log it? I need to get down to the infirmary, this needs stitches and the Colonel wants to see me in an hour."

She was already passing the weapon off to her friend and moving down the ramp. Her hand gun followed quickly, ammunition clip, belt and knife etc. Her flack jacket however went to the SF as she stepped out through the doors.

She quickened her pace, trying hard not to break into a run as she felt her frustration building as she realised it was not her having gotten injured that had made the Colonel so mad, it couldn't have been. She had disappointed him somehow and she had to figure out what she had done so she could fix it...and fast.

OoO

Janet, under the guise of taking her time over the stitches, watched her patient carefully. Sam was quiet...too quiet. "Major, you okay?" she asked, keeping things professional.

"Hmm?" Sam looked up sharply. She had been so far away in thought that she had almost forgotten that Janet was there. "Ah, yeah I'm fine. Just a little distracted is all."

"I can see that. Anything you want to talk about?" Janet looked her patient in the eye.

Carter shook her head. "No. Not really."

"Off the record even?" she asked lightly.

Sam frowned at that. What did Janet think that she could possibly have to say that needed to be kept off record? She answered her friend cautiously. "N-o, Janet. I don't have anything to say. Nothing happened...at least I don't think anything happened." She let her mind run over the events of the mission from the point of their being discovered until she was back in the gate room. Nothing seemed to stick out in her mind as unusual. "I mean it was just a standard retreat. Myself and the Colonel covered Daniel and Teal'c as they dialled and went through, then the Colonel covered me and I covered him to ensure we all got back safely."

There was nothing unusual about any of it, they had done it a thousand times.

"And what about your arm, when did you take the hit?"

"Dunno. Didn't even feel it, but it must have been pretty near the gate or I would have noticed the blood sooner."

Doctor Fraiser nodded. "That sounds about right. You definitely were not been bleeding for long before you got down here." she agreed. "So you don't know who shot you then or exactly when?"

"One of the jaffa I would have thought." Sam answered quickly, who else would it have been?

Janet sucked in a quick breath. "This wound is not from a staff-blast Sam. Look at it, it's thin and narrow with none of the burned tissue around the edges that you would expect to find from standard jaffa weaponry." The Doctor swallowed as she hedged at what she thought might have happened.

"Well if it wasn't a staff-blast what was it then?" Sam asked, confused to the point that she was almost smiling in fascination, the jaffa had no other weapons. "Shrapnel maybe?" she ventured.

Janet raised an eyebrow and continued in frank but hesitant tones. "Possibly...but if I didn't know any better I would say it's from one of our own weapons...a P-90 to be exact?" Her eyes dropped away as she spoke. What she was saying was one thing but what she was _not_ saying was a whole other thing and if she was wrong the inference could get her into a whole heap of trouble.

"A P-90? Don't be ridiculous, Janet. Only two of us carry P-90's and I _know _for a fact I did not shoot myself and there's no way that the Colonel..." Sam pulled up short, the image of him dropping the sight of his gun flashing quickly through her mind. Her face flickered in surprise and her head snapped down to examine the nick more intently. She fingered the wound.

"Easy Sam, you'll tear out the stitches, I'm not done yet." Janet warned, trying to pull the Major's hand away from the area of injury.

"There's no way to tell that this is from a P-90. You don't know that for sure, Janet. The Colonel would never shoot me." Sam defended, ignoring the Doctor's plying hands that were trying to get her to stop aggravating the still bleeding area. She pulled the anaesthetically numbed flesh apart slightly, measuring the width of it with her finger and subconsciously lining up the trajectory. One of the bottom stitches popped.

"Sam stop that!" Janet ordered harshly. "Regardless of how it happened you making it worse is not going to help."

"But it could have been shrapnel, right?" Sam insisted, catching the Doctor by the wrist and making her look her in the eye.

Janet sighed. "I suppose it could Sam but I don't think so. I've patched up too many bullet holes in my time to have much doubt over this. I'm sure it was an accident."

"Of course it was an accident!" Sam broke in and then continued quickly when she realised what she had just said sounded like an admission, which it wasn't. "If it happened! Which I don't think it did." The Major openly huffed with the Doctor, how could she even begin to think that the Colonel had shot her?

"Okay, okay Sam, take it easy. You're right, shrapnel, it could very well be shrapnel." Sam's lips grew thin on her face and Janet knew she had to finish her thought because her best friend could already read it. "But...if it's not...if something did happen that you don't want to-"

Again Sam cut her off, harshly this time. "Nothing happened Janet. The Colonel did _not_ shoot me." Sam bounced of the cot.

"Where are you going?" Janet demanded.

"Anywhere but here." Sam tried to get past her but Janet blocked her path.

"I'm not finished, that wound needs more stitches."

"I'll get someone else to do it." Sam spat, she was more than angry with her friend.

"Sam wait, please." Janet asked, lightly catching her uninjured arm. "I'm sorry...I believe you. Just let me finish up the stitching."

Sam hesitated. "It's fine. I'll dress it myself."

Janet shook her head. "That won't cut it Sam. You leave here now and you'll have to come back in a few hours and I will be off-duty by then. Anyone else who looks at this is going to think the same as I just did and they might not even ask, they might just write it up and you know what that means."

Sam sighed, she knew exactly what that meant. "An investigation into a potential friendly fire incident."

"Exactly. So please Sam, just let me do my job and I'll write it up an inconclusive, save everyone a lot of time and bother."

Carter sat herself back down on the cot and tipped her head back. "He's too good a shot to make a mistake like that." she argued quietly, mostly with herself. There was no way, in her heart, that she was prepared to believe that he could have made such an almost fatal mistake and yet Janet was rarely ever wrong about these things.

"Sam, you say you don't remember getting hit?"

"That's correct, I don't."

"And you say your mission retreat was by the book?"

"Yeah as far as I can remember Janet. It all happened so quickly and some of the details are a little fuzzy as of yet but..." she trailed off in puzzled thought, remembering once again that he seemed to have been shooting in her direction, but why would he do that? The jaffa were all behind him.

Janet licked her lips and finished the last stitch before she spoke again. "So if everything was so routine, why then was Colonel O'Neill so angry with you in the gate room?"

"How do you know about that?" Sam stared at her friend.

"Daniel beat you down here, gave me a heads up. Now don't get mad at him, he's just worried, that's all."

"But I gave him my gear to check in." Sam responded almost blankly. "Then I washed up quickly before coming here."

"And he gave your gear to the gate room SF." Janet tore open the corner of the dressing packet with the edge of her teeth. Strictly speaking she was not supposed to do that in case of contamination but it gave her an extra moment to collect her thoughts, she chose the most direct path. "He said that the Colonel said you had disobeyed orders, want to tell me about that?" she asked cautiously.

Sam felt frustration bubble up inside her. "I wish I could, Janet!"

"You mean you don't want to?" the Doctor probed.

"No not that. I mean I can't tell you what I did."

Janet frowned, that was odd. "Even off-record, you can tell me as a friend, you know that. Just tell me what happened, what did you do Sam?"

"That's just it Janet, I don't know what I did!" She ran a hand into her hair. "I mean I've already gone over it a hundred times. I can't think what order that was big enough that I could have disobeyed to make him that angry. And now he wants to see me in his office. His _office_ for crying out loud!"

No-one ever got called to Jack O'Neill's office...not unless they really did something that was way, way out of line.

Janet sighed and slipped off her gloves. "Well Sam, if you can't actually remember maybe the reason why you are here is tied up in the answer." she indicated the fresh white bandage.

"But..." Sam stopped, there was logic to what Janet had just said. "Maybe. I mean I didn't even realise I had been injured which is bad...but that still does not explain the disobeying orders part."

Janet hopped up onto the cot beside her friend, now just as puzzled as she was. "Walk me through it Sam, every detail. There must be something he thinks you did and we both know you need to figure in out before you go down there or he'll tear you apart limb from limb."

Sam nodded and started describing her mission from the very beginning.

OoO

The close call was running through Jack O'Neill's mind on an almost infinite visual loop. It was slowed down enough now that he could see every single tiny detail from the way the light played on her hair to the slight smudge of dirt on her cheek as he gave her the signal.

He had watched her sprint for the gate, boots rising dust as she went. He assumed she was free and clear when she made the bottom step. Now all he had to do was get himself out of there. Just as he was about to look away from her movement beyond the gate caught his eye...shining metal...jaffa. Suddenly fully visible the jaffa was aiming his staff directly at Sam who probably could not see him.

Not wanting to take any chances with Sam's life Jack stood up and he aimed at the threat, all the while keeping Sam in his corner of his sight. The shot was going to be close but as she was moving away from the danger Jack deemed it worth the risk. He counted the moments until she would be clear.

Just as he squeezed the trigger Sam stopped short and turned, still well within the danger zone of his cross-hairs. His heart stopped beating, he saw the blood fly outwards, silhouetted against the edge of her arm and he panicked.

The world fell silent and then she was calling to him.

A staff-blast hit the ground near his feet, bringing back his own immediate danger and he cursed loudly. Seeing that Sam was still on her feet he ordered her home...for a second time.

And still she did not go! She turned further back and fired out over his left shoulder. Surely she would go now!

But instead of leaving she dived off the platform and out of sight. If there was one jaffa back there there could so easily be more and with that thought in mind Jack carelessly broke cover and took off at a run to protect her. He heard her picking off jaffa behind him and knew that he was safe, but as for her...he had no way of knowing and no-one else was there to cover her six on the blind-side.

A knock on his door broke him sharply from his reverie. "Enter." he voiced evenly.

A patched up but pale looking Carter stepped into the room. "Close the door, Major." he ordered.

Sam complied and firmly shut the door before turning to face him. She had still not completely figured it out but now she had at least an idea of what might have happened to piss him off so much. It was not until Janet had pointed out that he had told her to go through the gate more than once that she realised her potential mistake, but even at that his reaction had seemed way too over the top for that to be the catalyst. It was far from the first time she had waited at the horizon for him whilst under heavy fire. Usually when she did he he thanked her for the extra back-up. "You wanted to see me, Sir?" she asked nervously, standing to attention.

"Yes Carter, I did. Have a seat."

"Thank you, Sir." Sam said, keeping things formal, he still looked aggrieved.

Jack took a moment to close the folder he had not really been reading and regarded his second in command. She looked tense, apprehensive and that told him she still did not really know why she was here. "How's the arm?" he began, glancing at the sleeve of her green jacket, adorned with a new patch...or was it a new jacket?

"It's fine thanks. Six stitches, one week off-rota. Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Nothing?" Jack asked, kind of irked by her casualness.

Sam hesitated briefly. "No Sir, pretty much exactly the same as last time only higher up." Unconsciously Sam rubbed the month old scar that was still purple and red above her elbow.

"And what about how you got your injury this time, Carter?" Jack pressed, wanting to hear it from her.

Sam shrugged. "That's just it Sir, I don't remember getting the injury. It must have happened near the gate though, Janet said I had not been bleeding for very long by the time I made it to the infirmary."

"You don't remember?" Jack peaked his hands in front of him on the desk to keep them still. "Well I remember. And you are right, it did happen near the gate. In fact it happened _at _the gate."

Carter felt her eyebrows raise slightly but she did not speak. She knew he was not about to tell her what she had done wrong and that he would expect her to tell him. That thought constricted the air in her throat. She continued to hold her silence.

"You realise, of course, it would not have happened at all if you had just followed orders?" Jack accused, anger building within him again. It was somehow even worse that she did not even know how close she had come.

"Sir." Sam defended, trying to pre-empt his thinking. "To the best of my knowledge I did follow orders."

"Re-eally! So I ordered you to run up to the gate, turn around and then dive behind it did I?" Jack challenged, his fists, suddenly under the desk, tightening into balls as he fought to control himself.

"Well..." Sam felt slightly trapped, she knew there was no right answer to that one. "Not...not exactly, Colonel." she voiced quietly, looking down at the desk in front of her.

"Not exactly? You mean not at all, Carter. I told you to go and just when I thought you were safe you stopped and turned back."

"I didn't turn back Sir, I looked back, to check you were okay, but you weren't so I took a shot at a jaffa who was just about to shoot you in the back. After that there were more and you still had a ways to go so I took shelter and covered you. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

Jack had not been aware that there had been enemies that close to him and it gave him pause. He knew Carter was anything but reckless but at the same time. "Your refusal to follow my order put your life in direct danger, Major."

"Sir!" Sam forced out, shocked by his lack of acknowledgement of her actions. "They would have killed you. I had to shoot them. I had to stay."

"And in the process of doing so you almost got yourself killed. Do you realise that Carter? Do you realise how close you came?" Jack's voice almost cracked as he spoke, my god, the mere thought of losing her like that.

Sam could think of nothing to say. His tone had completely changed and she was sure she had seen a tiny fraction of anguish pass through his eyes. She sat in dumb silence, watching him, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.

"There was a jaffa on the other side of the gate. He was aiming at you, if you had just gone on through his shot would have missed you."

"You think the jaffa shot me?"

Jack's heart thumped hard in his chest. "No Carter, that's not what I think! I shot the jaffa before he fired but you stopped short. I wasn't expecting you to do that and because of that _I_ almost killed you, Sam...me! It was me that shot you!"

Shit, he had not meant to say that last part, not yet. He was supposed to be angry at her first, make her see her own mistake before he confessed that bit.

What? "Colonel, I..." Sam's eyes ranged the room as she thought about Janet's words in the infirmary. "_I would say it's from one of our own weapons...a P-90 to be exact." _She was right...holy Hannah, Janet was right...the Colonel had shot her! Instantly Sam wrapped her hand around the wound and pressed hard upon it, trying to make it go away, trying to erase the memory of the last few seconds and the knowledge that she had actually been shot by her own CO. "Colonel, I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, Carter." Jack stated through a sigh. "I just don't want something like this to happen again. Next time I order you to go through the gate don't look back."

Please don't look back...don't ever look back.

Carter was about to acquiesce to his request purely based upon the tone of it. In fact she had actually opened her mouth to do so when something inside her refused. "I'm sorry Sir, I can't do that." She looked up into his surprised face. "If I do that you might not make it. Like today. If I had not done what I did you would not be here. I know why you prefer to be the last one through the gate. It's because the last one through is the one most at risk, but Sir, if I'm honest, which I feel I have to be right now, I can't deal with the idea that me not stopping could cost you your life."

Jack suppressed a sigh. "Carter, that's my prerogative as leader of SG-1."

"I understand that Sir, but as your 2IC it is my job to look out for you too. Part of my role is to make sure that the leader of the unit stays safe and I know you know that already, so I know that you can see this from my point of view too." Sam reached out across the table but she did not touch him, she was merely trying to get him to understand. "So I'm sorry Colonel, but that means I will always be compelled to look back. If only for a brief second, I will always do that."

"Even if I order you not to?" Jack asked in a quieter and sadder whisper than he had intended. Her need to protect him was having more effect on him than it should.

Sam contemplated that for a moment or two. "If you make it a direct order here and now I will do my best not to hesitate at the horizon but you've got to realise something, Sir." Her fingers fidgeted on the desk, picking up his pen and then setting it down again. "If I blindly step through that ring, back home, to safety and you don't follow I don't know how I would even begin to deal with that."

O'Neill felt himself waver slightly as her tone took on a whole new and highly personal note.

"If you did not come home and it was discovered that you were mere inches, or even feet from the gate I would feel the the full weight of that responsibility. At a distance like that even my presence could be enough to make the difference and from the vantage point of the gate I can clearly see any danger coming my way."

"Not always, Carter." Jack reminded her instantly. "You did not see the danger today because the edge of the gate was blocking it. If I had not stood up to shoot that jaffa you might not have made it. And then you ducked down beside the damned thing with no regard for the danger that could be on the blind-side and I couldn't see either because the gate was active and my angle was poor."

Sam's mouth 'oh-ed' slightly, the whole picture of the day's events from his perspective coming clear into her mind. He had not broke cover early to try to make it to the gate. He had broke cover early to try to ensure she was the one who did not get shot in the back. In some ways that changed everything but in others it did not. "I realise my mistake now, Colonel." she offered him. "But I still feel my decision was the right one. I know you disagree and I thank you for what you did. Breaking early like that was a risk, one you took for me and I appreciate it, I really do...but I still feel you would not have made the gate had I not stayed." She more than felt it, she knew it.

Jack let his eyes squeeze themselves tight at her blatant stubbornness. She was right of course, he never would have made the gate had it not been for her but why would she not just see reason? "Carter...you can't just make decisions like that. Why did you not just go on through after you shot the first jaffa? I would have made it from there."

"No Sir, you would not." Sam argued, pushing the lines of insubordination. She was not sure how much she could get away with but she had learned this technique from the best and he was now staring at her somewhat agitatedly as she spoke. "I made a judgement call and I stand by that call. Leaving you to your fate with three other jaffa at your back would be tantamount to leaving you behind and I could not do that to you, Colonel. I could not leave you to be shot, not when there was another option."

"Even if you did not think that other option through fully?"

"Yes Sir, that's right."

There was so much conviction in her voice that Jack could not help but be reminded of a younger version of himself and a similar conversation when he had refused to pull out ahead of his CO in the Middle East. "Okay Carter, I accept your point. But what do you suggest we do about this because both of us needlessly risking our lives for each other is unacceptable."

She shifted back in her seat and thought for more than a few seconds. "Well Sir, we could count on each other to watch our backs."

"We do that anyhow, Carter." Jack growled, frustrated by her stating of the obvious.

Despite herself Sam smiled mildly. "What I mean Sir, is on the final approach. You watch my back at the side of the horizon and behind the gate and I cover yours till you get there, then we both go through. It would take a few practice runs in the training fields to get it right but I think we could work it out so that it was relatively safe for both of us." She shrugged slightly. "Or at least to the point where the risk would be acceptable for both of us."

"And General Hammond." Jack pointed out. "That kind of action would be a change in our baseline retreat protocols." His face twitched slightly as he thought then he nodded. "I think it's worth a try. We could get Teal'c involved too, he's been retreating through stargates for decades."

Sam's face screwed up slightly. "I don't think he would quite see it that way, Sir. But he has been watching _other_ people retreat through the gate for years, so yeah, he might have some pointers."

Jack smirked at that. "Yeah okay, you are right there. I'll speak to Hammond, see what he thinks. I can't promise anything and if he says no we are going to have to have another long talk because I can't have you scaring me like that again. Half a footstep, Carter. That's how far away you were from being killed."

Sam looked at where he was staring at the spot on her chest then glance at where the bullet had grazed her arm. The line was completely parallel. Her hand came up to cover her heart. God! It had actually been that close! If she had stopped a fraction of a second earlier it would have been too late for him to do anything about it. He would have shot her in the heart and then the jaffa would have taken him out a second or two later. "I'm sorry, Sir." she whispered, knowing exactly how that must have made him feel. Instantly she felt sick.

"All I saw was the blood, Carter. And for a moment I could not tell where it was coming from. I..." He could not say any more, but he knew he did not have to.

"I understand, Colonel." Sam told him in honest tones. "You didn't know, you couldn't have known. You ordered me home and I stopped short." She left the rest unsaid. She would not say that she should not have done it because it was the right decision but opening that argument again right now was pointless.

"But still, I shot you." Jack was now beginning to feel the guilt of that act properly. He had shot his 2IC! Damn that was not a pleasant feeling.

Sam waved a dismissive hand. "Oh please! You call this getting shot? Daniel did a better number on himself in the training grounds a few years back. Remember when he shot himself in the foot? We all thought that was funny and now you are getting upset over this?" Carter whipped off her jacket and peeled of the slightly stained patch on her arm.

"Don't do that, Sam!" Jack cried, horrified that she would so readily expose her fresh wound to the elements. "Oh." he said when he saw the small graze.

"You sound almost disappointed." Sam noted as she scrutinised him.

"Well, not disappointed but...I did think I had done a better job of shooting you than that!"

Sam was glad to hear the sarcasm back in his voice. "Well, when we tells the guys in loud voices in the commissary you will have done a better job...and I will have more stitches as well!"

"Really, how many?" Jack asked in conspiratorial tones a grin spreading wide across his face, matching that of hers.

"Dunno yet Sir, what do you think?"

Jack shrugged. "Eight...ten?" he suggested.

"More like eleven or thirteen, odd numbers are more believable and anything over ten indicates a deeper wound, closer to the bone."

"Nice! Maybe we should ask Janet for her opinion? She's bound to know what a good number is."

Sam grimaced hard. "Ye-ah...but first I owe her an apology. She tried to tell me I had been shot by a P-90 but I didn't believe her and just got angry. I told her that there was no way you could have shot me. I think she thought I was hiding something on purpose but did not want to push it." Sam cover her face with her hand. "She even asked me if I had something to tell her off the record!"

Jack barked out a brief laugh at that. That was so typically Janet Fraiser that you just had to love the little Doc. "So what did you tell her then?"

Sam's face turned slightly pink. "I insisted that it was shrapnel. Eventually she agreed to write down 'inconclusive' on the report just to get me to stay and let her finish stitching me up. I suppose I'd better go and find her, let her change the report back to her original diagnosis."

"Um, probably best she doesn't change it, not yet. Not at least until I speak to Hammond. He might want to keep this under wraps if at all possible, don't need another investigation. I mean this could have been a serious incident but thankfully it was not, I kept my aim wide...just not wide enough to anticipate you stopping."

Sam squirmed a bit at that one and cleared her throat but passed no comment. "If you are sure, Sir. I would still like to tell her the whole story though. She deserves to know that she was right."

"Yeah sure, no problem! Our accounts will be accurate enough to be read either way. Hammond may want the incident reported to help justify the change of protocol so if we write our mission reports to be read either way then 'inconclusive' on the medical report will be just fine. Some bullet tears can look like shrapnel and vice versa, I mean what is shrapnel after all but small pieces of metal being flung through the air at break-neck speeds. Similar damage if they are smooth, right?"

"Right, Sir." Sam smiled, relieved that she was back on terms with her CO. For an hour or so there she had thought she was really in hot water, but as usual herself and Jack had worked it out...and damned quickly this time. Somehow, no matter what the situation was they always worked it out.

Hopefully Hammond would approve their idea to explore a safer retreat protocol. Not only would it mean that she would not have to live with the dread of inadvertently leaving her CO behind but it would mean that she would get to shoot him back on the training grounds and boy was he going to be standing central in the line of fire when it came to zat-gun scenarios.

Smiling to herself Sam left Jack's office to head back to Janet in the infirmary. She had a lot of plotting to do and she needed her best friend's help...but on a more serious note she would definitely be paying closer attention to what goes on on the blind-side of the gate from now on. No way she wanted Jack's attempts to save her life to be the reason either one of them lost theirs.

END

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**AN: Hope you enjoyed that. If you feel like it, I would appreciate you dropping me a quick line to let me know either way! ;)**


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